Posts Tagged ‘Lufthansa’
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
Lufthansa owned, UK based, Bmi has announced plans to challenge British Airways by flying daily services to the Libyan capital, Tripoli. The airline has already put tickets on sale and the first flight is scheduled for 1 December. British Airways began its daily service in 1999 and up until now has been the only UK based airline to operate such a service on the route.
Bmi will be hoping to tap into business supplied by those travelling to and from Libya to work in the country’s lucrative oil and gas industry. A spokesman for the airline said there was also an increase in demand from tourists wishing to enter the country as a starting point to exploring North Africa’s Sahara Desert.
Many view Bmi’s decision as an indication that relations between the UK and Libya are improving. The country was condemned around the world for its involvement in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. The terrorist attack resulted in the deaths of 270 people.
Bmi’s Tripoli service will complement the services it flies to other African cities including Cairo, Addis Ababa, Khartoum and Freetown. The carrier is also used to serving other oil and gas-rich areas around the world including Riyadh and Jeddah in the Middle East, Aberdeen in Scotland and the Eastern European cities of Almaty and Moscow.
Other airlines flying to Libya from the UK are Libyan Airways, twice a week, from Heathrow and Air Afriqiyah which provides daily services from Gatwick.
Tags: Air Afriqiyah, BMI, British Airways, Gatwick, Heathrow, libyan Airways, Lockerbie, Lufthansa, oil
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
U.S. carrier Continental Airlines finally completed its move over to the Star Alliance this week and will now join airlines such as U.S. Airways, United, Air Canada and Lufthansa. Continental Airlines decided that they would leave the SkyTeam alliance they were originally a part of when members Delta and Northwest announced they were joining forces. It is the first time a major airline has switched alliances. Continental Airlines’ President and CEO, Jeff Smisek said that there was no way his airline could operate next to a merged Delta and Northwest because they would never allow Continental the input into alliance decisions they wanted to have.
Smisek said that by joining the twenty-five members of Star Alliance Continental would now be able to offer its passengers a wider range of destinations through links with other members. He also declared that the tie up would bring in much needed revenue to the tune of around $100 million every year.
Alliance members have the chance to expand the number of destinations they have access to. Code sharing allows members of an alliance to coordinate flights with other companies and also market and advertise these flights. Most will join however so that they can share information on scheduling and pricing.
This week saw Continental sign code sharing agreements with four other Star Alliance members – British Midland Airways (bmi), Lufthansa, Air Canada and United Airlines. It says that it plans to sign more code sharing agreements in the near future.
Tags: Air Canada, alliance, code sharing, Continental Airlines, Delta. Northwest, Lufthansa, pricing, SkyTeam, Star Alliance, United, US Airways
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Two of the world’s largest global distribution systems are currently refusing to give any comment on whether or not they plan to join forces. Amadeus and Travelport have allegedly been in talks about a possible merger, the result of which would create an industry behemoth. The two companies are currently in the hands of private equity companies.
Travelport is under the control of Blackstone, an American equity firm who’s CEO, Stephen Shwartzman has already told the industry that it plans to sell five companies from its portfolio and float another eight.
Amadeus is owned mostly by WAM Acquisition, a company that is run in turn by Cinven and BC Partners in the U.K. Iberia, Lufthansa and Air France control the remaining portion of the company.
Amadeus and Travelport between them pretty much have market dominance throughout Europe with Amadeus being the biggest in continental Europe. If the reported merger went ahead it would create a company worth somewhere in the region of £7.4 billion according to some sources. Although spokespersons for both companies have said that the rumours are just speculation it is widely believed that Amadeus plans to float sometime in the New Year.
Tags: Air France, Amadeus, Blackstone, global distribution systems, Iberia, Lufthansa, merger, Travelport, WAM
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
Lufthansa has announced that it will be re-launching its in-flight broadband internet service for passengers. Plans are to have its FlyNet service up and running again by the middle of next year. The satellite based wireless service will allow customers to access the internet as well as use smart phones and communicate using text message services.
In 2004 Lufthansa along with ten other major airlines rolled out a broadband service called Connexion which was developed by Boeing. However the company stopped its service in 2006 causing a great deal of embarrassment to the airline that had spent around $1 million fitting the service to each of 63 of its fleet of long haul aircraft. It also spent a large amount of money advertising and promoting the now redundant service to its customers.
The new venture is a partnership with Panasonic and Lufthansa plan to have the system fitted to the majority of its long range fleet within a year of its launch. Wolfgang Mayrhuber, Lufthansa Chief Executive and Chairman says that the company is looking to provide its business passengers with a similar service that they would expect to find when accessing the internet from land based hot spots.
Chief executive of Panasonic Avionics Corp., Paul Margis said that because Lufthansa had previously been a pioneer with Connexion they were the perfect airline through which to release the all new broadband package.
Tags: airline, Boeing, broadband, hot spot, internet, Lufthansa, Panasonic, Panasonic Avionics Corp.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
German airline Lufthansa has agreed to purchase the remaining 20 percent of British Midland Airways from its owner SAS. The company already owns 80 percent of bmi and has agreed to pay £19 million for the Scandinavian airlines stake in the company. On top of the payment Lufthansa has said that it will pay a further £19 million to cancel rights it agreed to with shareholders back in 1999.
Earlier this year Lufthansa was forced to raise its ownership to 80 percent of bmi because of an agreement it had with the airline’s owner Michael Bishop. It has also said that it will pay additional money to SAS should it decide to sell any parts of the company over the next two years.
Airline companies British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have both said that they are interested in buying bmi. The company is the second biggest at Heathrow behind British Airways and currently owns 11 percent of the landing and take-off slots at the airport. The slots are said to be the most sought after in the world and any airline wishing to grow at Heathrow has to do so by purchasing these slots from other airlines.
Tags: BMI, British Airways, Heathrow, Lufthansa, SAS
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
The European Union has formally charged British Airways, Iberia and American Airlines for breaching anti-trust rules which forbid companies from making deals with each other that shut out rivals.
The airlines are accused of making deals with each other to share lucrative trans-Atlantic routes. The European Union has been investigating the oneworld alliance that the airlines belong to. It says that if it finds the companies guilty of forming an illegal cartel to fix prices on trans-Atlantic routes it could fine them up to ten percent of their yearly turnover.
The European Union has said that it is only looking into the trans-Atlantic airlines at present and any findings should not affect other members of the oneworld alliance. However it is conducting investigations into the Star Alliance which is made up by Air Canada, United, Continental and Lufthansa and also SkyTeam, an alliance made up of Delta/Northwest and Air France/KLM.
The European Union has told all three airlines under investigation that they now have the opportunity to defend themselves against the accusations of price fixing either in writing or at a formal hearing. The airlines are also under investigation for planning to extend their alliance across routes to places like Mexico and Canada.
Tags: Air Canada, Air France, airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Continental, European Union, Iberia, Lufthansa, oneworld, SkyTeam
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
The race is still to buy the BMI airline from parent company Lufthansa. For several months it has seemed as though leading airline British Airways was in the lead, showing the most interest and outbidding all other interested parties.
However, this week rival airline Flybe has shown an unexpected interest in the BMI bidding wars and it seems as the regional carrier may even decide to make a joint bid. Flybe has now emerged as a potential runner in the race to buy BMI from Lufthansa. The regional carrier is being tipped to make a joint bid with British Airways. According to recent reports, Flybe has indicated its interest in buying part or perhaps even all of BMI.
It is yet uncertain whether Flybe will be able to outbid British Airways, and it has been suggested that the two airlines may even form an alliance in order to buy BMI.
Whatever the outcome, it is certain that BMI needs a serious cash injection soon, as it is expected to lose at total of £170 million this year alone. However, despite hemorrhaging money, BMI is still a great buy as it owns 11% of Heathrow Airport’s runway slots, which is second only to British Airways.
Tags: airlines, BMI, flights, Flybe, Lufthansa, travel
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
